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User: pilkul

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  1. Re:Thanks on Sushi Prepared on a Printer · · Score: 1

    As far as I know "arigatou" is derived from the purely Japanese adjective "arigatai", meaning kind. Thus "arigatou" means basically "thank you for your kindness". Well I haven't studied Japanese etymology in detail, but that makes a lot more sense than your bizarre explanation. There hasn't been a lot of contact between Portugal and Japan historically, and it would be astonishing if the Japanese derived one of their most basic and common words from them. Also, "obrigado" doesn't sound similar at all to "arigatou" to the Japanese ear.

  2. Re:Getting into IT as a career path is stupid on Open Source is Not a Career Path · · Score: 1
    I knew I wanted to be a computer programmer when I was 7 years old. I learnt to program in assembler when I was 9.

    Just a slightly unrelated note: I too completely wanted to be a programmer when I was a kid. I mastered assembly, C++, etc as a teenager. In university though I ended up developing several other interests, changed major and pretty much lost interest in it as a career. I would never have believed it if you had told me when I was 13, but I don't want to be a programmer anymore.

    I'm just saying this as a warning to you in case you're still young. Consider the possibility that you might not want to be a coder anymore at some point, and prepare other career paths for yourself. You don't want to turn out like some people I know and keep on unhappily programming just out of inertia. (Of course, if you do end up being happy with the same career all your life, good for you.)

  3. Same as other handheld devices on Could Your Blackberry Be Damaging Your Thumbs? · · Score: 1
    I don't see why the blackberry is being singled out. All electronic devices can cause RSI if not used in moderation. I bought a stylus-based Palm Zire 21 last year and after 3 months of too intense usage I got mild tendonitis in my right wrist. I was forced to get rid of it to avoid permanent injury.

    In my case at least, I would consider stylus-based devices as more dangerous than button-based ones, since the former force you to make many small precise strokes with your entire wrist while button-based ones generally involve just the thumbs. I've been using button-based devices like game controllers, cellphones and electronic dictionaries for years with no problems (except the occasional bloody thumb (seriously :)), but a few months of stylus wrecked my arm. I was actually considering buying a Blackberry for ergonomic reasons!

  4. Re:Not only Google looks for big brains on Defining Google · · Score: 1

    I'm aware of the studies you're referring to, of course you're correct that it wouldn't work with humans. But considering that this is a question for a programming job, it's reasonable to assume that the pirates are computers. Not to mention, if the pirates were somehow irrational but the question doesn't specify exactly how, then there is no single correct answer.

  5. Re:Not only Google looks for big brains on Defining Google · · Score: 1
    No, the given solution is right and yours is mistaken. However, you may have missed some implied assumptions common in simple game theory problems (to be fair, this problem is stated a bit too vaguely). The implied assumptions here are that all pirates are perfectly logical, they want to maximize the amount of money they get, they know that all the other pirates are equally logical and greedy (this is crucial!), the result of the vote is binding but the pirates can't make any other binding agreement.

    The problem is your assumption that killing a pirate can somehow "force a more even distribution", when all it actually does is move the offer power to the next most senior pirate, who is able to make any offer he likes (even or not).

    Okay, so the result with two pirates is obviously that Pirate 2 gets all the money. Even if he were to strike a deal with Pirate 1 to kill Pirate 3, claiming he'll give a 50-50 distribution or something, when the power comes down to him he'll shamelessly break his word and give all the coins to himself. Pirate 1 knows this, by the assumption that each pirate has full knowledge that the others are logical.

    So with 3 pirates, Pirate 1 will vote for any offer that gives him greater than 0 coins. (Remember that he is perfectly logical and wouldn't kill Pirate 3 out of spite like a real-life pirate would.) Since Pirate 3 knows that Pirate 1 is logical, the outcome here must be 1-0-99. Importantly, it will be 1-0-99 regardless of what happened in previous rounds when there were 4 or 5 pirates. I.e. even if Pirates 1, 2, 3, voted to kill Pirate 4 to "ensure an even distribution", when the power comes to Pirate 3's hands his absolute greed will take over and he will offer 1-0-99.

    From this it follows that with 4 pirates, Pirate 2 will vote yes to any offer that gives him more than the 0 coins he would get if Pirate 4 died, and Pirate 4 knows this, so the outcome is 0-1-0-99. Again, with 4 pirates this must be the outcome. Pirate 2 would be stupid to kill Pirate 4 "to force a more even distribution" because he'd just end up with nothing at all.

    So with 5 pirates, Pirates 1 and 3 will vote yes to anything that gives them greater than 0 coins, again; if they vote to kill Pirate 5 they'll end up with nothing. The outcome is 1-0-1-0-98.

  6. Re:Right answer? on Defining Google · · Score: 1

    "Makes no sense", who cares, it's a clearly stated, well-defined and consistent rule. This whole thing is clearly intended as an abstract game theory question and the "pirates" are only a metaphor that people claiming the answer is wrong are taking too literally.

  7. Re:Right answer? on Defining Google · · Score: 1

    Pirate 2 can't die either; if it comes down to only 2 pirates, Pirate 1 is guaranteed to get 0 coins. Therefore he'll vote yes if he's given 1 coin.

  8. Re:The supposed answer still doesn't make sense. on Defining Google · · Score: 1
    I'm sure Pirate 4 would make pirates 1-3 a better offer than one, zero and one gold coins respectively AND not die the process, in order to get more than ZERO gold coins.

    But Pirate 4 is maximally greedy, remember. He might make a more generous offer to Pirates 1-3 but when he actually gains power he will turn back on his promise and give them zero coins. (This is a game with only one iteration, so there is no harm to Pirate 4 for betraying his comrades.) And being highly intelligent (i.e. being perfectly logical and having full knowledge that the other players are perfectly logical), Pirates 1-3 know this, so they will accept getting 1 coin.

    That said, you have a point in that the problem is rather vaguely formulated. It's perhaps unfair to penalize applicants for interpreting the problem in a different way than intended by the questioner --- it might be better to express it using precise game theory terminology, but then you run the risk of excluding people who don't know the jargon.

  9. Re:Kudos for Camack on Carmack Discusses Delay of Q3A Source · · Score: 1

    Id is a very small, transparent company where the employees speak for themselves, whereas Sun is a giant corporation. I find it easier to trust Carmack when he gives excuses than some random spokesperson. Also, no other game developer does this.

  10. Re:Lame List on Top 20 Gaming Lows of 2004 · · Score: 1
    Ugh ... a console fanboy rears his ugly head.

    Whatever. I don't even own a console.

    What's great about wide open maps and "freedom" is that it allows you attack a problem several different ways rather than have the game mimic a linear amusement ride.

    This is a good property, but it doesn't have a whole lot to do with "wide open maps".

    Yawn ... here comes the standard Japanese are better at games/animation/whatever than American and European creators.

    I never said that. However, Japanese developers don't make this particular mistake.

  11. Re:Lame List on Top 20 Gaming Lows of 2004 · · Score: 1
    No, what does it matter how much freedom you have? I have the freedom to walk anywhere in my house and manipulate any object in real life but that doesn't make my house a fun playhouse. The trick in a good game design is not to maximize freedom, but to set clear and intuitive boundaries such that the player will never even be tempted to violate the rules of the game. Take Tetris: all you can do in the game is move and rotate blocks, but did you ever have the desire to do anything more? No, of course not. Lack of freedom is only annoying when e.g. a game provides buildings with doors that can't be opened.

    Too many American developers waste their time making "realistic" games that provide "freedom" and yet are boring and unpolished because the developers couldn't cope with the resulting combinatorial explosion. The best solution is often to add more limitations rather than more freedom. Instead of making it possible to enter the buildings, just remove the doors.

  12. Re:Number 1? on Top 20 Gaming Lows of 2004 · · Score: 1
    The legislative efforts are going nowhere. Meanwhile, EA is swallowing lots of formerly good companies and seriously stifling innovation in the industry. When was the last time EA released anything worthwhile? Early nineties?

    It's depressing to think that Origin, Maxis, Bullfrog and Westwood were all swallowed into the vile pool of slime that is EA, never to release a decent game again. Argh!!

  13. Re:I've said it before and I'll say it again on Tsunami Satellite Images · · Score: 1

    So any attack on any government body for any reason with or without warning is "legitimate" for you? If you're consistent, then, you must also believe that virtually all US interventions of the past century were legitimate, since almost none of them attacked civilians. Not to mention Hitler's unilateral conquest of Europe would be perfectly OK (putting aside his later abuse of civilians on his conquered lands).

  14. Re:Wikis don't work for technical documentation. on Microsoft Not Worried about FireFox · · Score: 1
    Wikis for technical documentation have indeed proven themselves to suck, but the reasons you offer why are largely wrong.

    Wiki advocates have even argued against completeness because it discourages participation. They've also decided against correctness in favor of a neutral point-of-view.

    Nobody really argues against completeness; an ideal wiki article is very complete (it's one of the Wikipedia Featured Article criteria), and it's only the initial versions that are not required to be. As for NPOV, it can only differ from truth in the case of controversial topics like George W. Bush; for technical issues like XUL format, ignorant people can be easily convinced that they are wrong.

    Many under-edited contributions from different people also guarantee duplication, contradiction, and inconsistency. If anyone tries to straighten out the mess, then revert wars are the result.

    This is closer to the root problem. The main trouble with technical documentation wikis is that they tend to be a total mess. However, they're not like this because of "revert wars": in my experience on Wikipedia, revert wars almost only happen because of controversy, which again is not present in technical topics.

    The core reason Wikipedia works and technical documentation wikis don't is that Wikipedia is very big and has a dedicated swarm of editors to fix and reorganize any poorly written article. Nobody feels responsible for technical documentation wikis, so they stagnate and accumulate cruft. In a word, public wikis need a community to work properly. Wikipedia, and a few other wikis, works because it has one; most small wikis (like technical docs) fail because they don't.

  15. Re:Gimp on Windows is useful on LinuxDevCenter Interviews RMS · · Score: 1

    Er, are you using the same port of Gimp that I am? On my Windows machine the Gimp has like 5 little separate windows, and whenever I maximize another program it covers all of them and I have to click 5 times to bring them all back to the top. Very annoying. And the program is generally inconsistent with the rest of Windows, with everything being done by context menu, etc. I'm not sure how anyone could prefer its interface in a Windows context...

  16. Re:Fundamental Difference on Anti-Spyware Products Don't Live Up to Promises · · Score: 1
    all their development efforts add up to nada in terms of income otherwise.

    Not really; don't underestimate how good being a developer of a well-known free application looks in an interview. Anyway, free spyware removal tool people must really hate spyware makers, I doubt that they would ever work with them.

  17. Re:Don't blast MS for Mom's self-inflicted wounds. on Anti-Spyware Products Don't Live Up to Promises · · Score: 1
    It's not a question of knowing the "source of the offer", it's a question of how to tell when something is suspicious.

    Honestly, all you need to understand is that the nasty stuff is always the stuff that sounds like it's trying to sell itself to you. I download all sorts of files and go to all sorts of websites that I don't strictly speaking know are trustworthy, but I've always managed to avoid being infected until now --- because I won't touch anything claiming to be "FREE" or exhorting me to "CLICK HERE" with a ten-foot pole.

  18. Re:The REALLY nasty malware... on Spyware Removal is Big Business · · Score: 1
    I would be VERY surprised if you didn't have at least the DSO Exploit registry keys installed on your system

    Er, indeed I do but from googling "DSO exploit" these appear to be a vulnerability in IE that could potentially let in spyware, not an actual piece of malicious spyware that someone "installed" on my system.

    Thanks for the links. Yeah, I suppose if you go around visiting sites like "yahoogamez.com" (so sleazy-sounding!) that would explain it.

  19. Re:The REALLY nasty malware... on Spyware Removal is Big Business · · Score: 1
    Stupid question, but could someone please tell me where exactly this spyware comes from? I hear all about new users getting hundreds of pieces of spyware but I have no idea how this happens. I mean, personally I've never gotten a single piece of spyware. Yes, I'm relatively savvy and use firefox and browse behind a firewall, but even when I used IE last year I never got any spyware despite often browsing the web all day.

    So, how do these newbies get so much spyware? Many of them only visit hotmail and Google News as far as I can see. I'm honestly baffled about this.

  20. Re:And in other Congressional news... on Internet Porn More Addictive Than Crack, Senate Told · · Score: 1
    I basically agree with what you're saying, by the way. I also would prefer for children to see more realistic portrayals of violence (realistic in the sense of having a realistic context and showing plausible human emotions and reactions, not in the sense of blood and gore!) than Rambo. I do think, as you surmised, that false portrayals of violence can be somewhat harmful to children: I just think that in practice it would be usually not be as bad as hardcore pornography.

    There's a fine line between "fiction" and "lies". The distinction depends in part on the audience. If a false work is acknowledged by the viewer to be false, it's fiction; if it is taken as a truthful view of reality, it's a lie. (I am omitting questions of the intent of the speaker which are also relevant to defining "lies" in general but aren't as relevant in this case.) So in some sense pornography is harmless fiction when viewed by an adult (or informed child), but a misleading lie when viewed by a child (or ignorant adult). And note that all films, novels, etc have some core which is taken as truth: even if the facts are made-up, we generally expect portrayals of human psychology to be accurate, even in sword-and-sorcery fantasy. Thus even a work which is universally acknowledged to be staged, such as a porn film, is "fiction" on a superficial level but deep down can still contain dangerous "lies".

    I have nothing against pure fiction; however, just as I would shield my children from the hateful lies of Holocaust deniers, I would shield my children from the soulless sex of hardcore pornography (even though in both cases I think informed adults should be free to have access to these things). When aiken_d claims that I'm being "arrogant" and "condescending" for this double standard, he's ignoring the fact that children generally have less ability than me to make the fiction/lie distinction, which is not because they're stupider but because they haven't had time to acquire as much knowledge.

    If my children did end up seeing porn or Holocaust denial, a good reaction would be to at least brief them on the falsity of them (i.e. trying to turn my child into an informed child, thus converting the "lies" into "fiction"). Perhaps, once they're old enough, it would even be a good idea to do this: as you say, it can be valuable to see lies for yourself to develop your critical thinking. However, letting them see Holocaust denials or hardcore porn at a young age without comment would simply be bad parenting, in my opinion.

  21. Re:And in other Congressional news... on Internet Porn More Addictive Than Crack, Senate Told · · Score: 1

    No, I don't mean "bad sex" (whatever that might be). I mean that because porn doesn't present an accurate picture of sex, watching it when you don't know any better could cause some subtle problems in worldview. For example, a child might come away from porn with the image of sex as vaguely dirty and aggressive; or as something to be engaged in for raw physical pleasure rather than as the consummation of a loving relationship. These types of conceits could prevent him from having a full sex life when he is an adult.

  22. Re:And in other Congressional news... on Internet Porn More Addictive Than Crack, Senate Told · · Score: 2, Insightful
    I completely agree with you that kids should be taught about sex: that's why I would encourage mine to read sex education books, Savage Love and watch highbrow erotic films. But most porn is not educational: it's nothing but lies, misogyny and ugly fantasies. Children exposed to porn without any understanding of its falseness could well develop misunderstandings and bad attitudes that screw up their sex life when they grow up.

    On the other hand, developing bad attitudes towards violence screws up nothing in their life (since the misunderstandings are rarely so bad that it would actually cause them to go out and hurt people). That's why I would argue porn is more harmful to children than violence.

  23. Re:Reaching out to Rockstar on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Launch · · Score: 1
    There were some very dumb pathing issues too. A common thing in previous games was to stand under a bridge and watch as police etc., jumped straight off it to their deaths to get you. Or they would drive straight into the water etc.

    Uh, dude, that's not a bug, that's a feature :).

  24. Re:How ridiculous... on Whois Record Falsification Closer To Illegality · · Score: 1
    What else is p2p used for? Distributing open source software? Hah! The fact that it's on a p2p network is evidence it's being shared illegally. You can verify this by any search of such a network.

    Please take the time to read posts before you reply to them. He clearly explained to you that p2p has nothing at all to do with domain name registrations.

    You should be required to say who you are if there's evidence you broke the law.

    Whois information is required from every user of the DNS system, regardless of whether there's any evidence they broke the law. Nobody's saying suspected criminals shouldn't be tracked down. Were the data kept private it could still easily be obtained through a warrant from the registrar.

    Let me put it this way: one day, police will be able to look at your face and then use facial recognition technology to look up loads of info on you. Will you then say it's a violation of your privacy rights for a cop to observe your face (i.e., look at you)?

    The main violation of privacy happened when the police collected all this data on innocent citizens in the first place. But also, in order to scan your face the policeman would have to photograph you (not just look at you), which in police jargon is known as a "mugshot". Geez, rebutting your arguments is like shooting fish in a barrel.

  25. Re:Not more people on Firefox Browser On An Upward Trend · · Score: 1
    Who teached you your english?

    Having lived in a population of non-native speakers for years, that doesn't even sound unnatural to me.